What's in it for me???

If you approach everything you do, think, want and experience, from the perspective of "what's in it for me?" then you are in all respects normal. This could well be described as what humans do. But what if something you discovered, explained itself to you as "it was never about you, and never will be"? I suggest that this state is indeed possible to experience and realize.

People go after what ever they go after for personal gain. Especially so-called 'altruists'. This is what motivates the religious, the political, the entrepreneurs, the welfare-cases; almost everybody, in fact.

I have discovered that riches beyond measure come to those who are able to step outside of 'whats in it for me', and instead to go forth in a state of complete humility, vis-a-vis life.

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Phoenix

I believe that the pursuit of something worth pursuing is a valid one, as it's what motivates us and its lessons teach us to abandon the short-term blissful ignorance and fear of egocentric tunnel-vision. You yourself state that "riches beyond measure" come to those who succeed in transcending their ego. To say that desire for personal gain leads to ignorance is false as much as to say that desire for personal loss leads to ignorance is obvious. Personal gain for yourself does not entail personal loss for others, as if resources were limited or one's status and qualities were defined in relation to those of others, but rather personal gain is a matter of balance, resulting in complementariness and harmony with yourself and your environment.

Phoenix

It neither added or complemented. It took what was, and turned it into rubbish. But that is a great example of what people so often do to anything they fail to grasp: They automatically convert it into something they do grasp. And so add nothing to what they know, while making sure nobody else can either.

I see the point, but I dont entirely agree with it. The reason is because of the fake altruists that you mention. The people who think they live for others but live for themselves. Perhaps for some of them, they need to realize that wanting something for yourself is not only normal, it is natural, a primal urge of life. Just not the source of happiness.

This is the same as realizing that its not all about you because these people are essentially solipsists who see the world in terms of themselves no matter what beliefs they state. Religion is a way of looking past this in fact, but not `personal` religion. The cult of love is the church of the ego and is a gross perversion of the revealed. Once you at least have the perspective of something greater than yourself, the rest has a chance to follow. Research supports the religious being genuinely altruistic.

I believe that the pursuit of something worth pursuing is a valid one, as it's what motivates us and its lessons teach us to abandon the short-term blissful ignorance and fear of egocentric tunnel-vision. You yourself state that "riches beyond measure" come to those who succeed in transcending their ego. To say that desire for personal gain leads to ignorance is false as much as to say that desire for personal loss leads to ignorance is obvious. Personal gain for yourself does not entail personal loss for others, as if resources were limited or one's status and qualities were defined in relation to those of others, but rather personal gain is a matter of balance, resulting in complementariness and harmony with yourself and your environment.

Personnal gain is like stealing something that isn't yours. Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's, some dude once said.

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Phoenix

Fake, misguided personal gain is that way, I would say. Gain is subjective. Ultimately in the definitions of "personal" and "gain" there's no implication that you're stealing anything, or even acquiring anything, it just means you've advanced in striving for your goals.

The idea is not to do what you do with the explicit motivation of personal gain. Like hallucinogens: doing them can be a blast, and give considerable insight, but ultimately will not lead to a destination that is a destination. When you do what you do because it needs doing, for the glory (of itself, not yours), then the result may be spectacular in terms of what is incidently returned to you. It's a viewpoint that you either see, or don't see. And if you do not see it, it will make no sense at all.

When you do what you do because it needs doing, for the glory (of itself, not yours), then the result may be spectacular in terms of what is incidently returned to you.

This is the key to great art, and is one of the reasons why we love great metal. For they can be just spectacular full stop (it doesnt have to be in terms of you remember!). Such things seem to resonate with us for some magical or biological reason.

Getting some personal gain I think it's kind of necessary to keep the system running. But I mean little momments of happiness, that's what I call gain, score a goal if you play soccer, write a good program if you are a programmer, write a wonderful piece of music if you are a composer, all these bring some little moments of happiness that need to exist in regular intervals to keep the system running as I said, which means that they are by no means the entirety of what is valuable. They are only the gasoline.

This kind of gain is needed. But..........

There is something odd. I've come to believe that if you seek it, you kill it. It's a butterfly-wings like phenomenon. You touch it, bang it's dead, it loses it's purity. Therefore I believe you should embrace personal little "gains" but not seek them because you MIGHT (depends on the character) start becoming some kind of hedonist which is PRACTICALLY bad (I hate preachers, if it wasn't genuinely bad I wouldn't preach about it just because I hated the word).

Personally I rarely think about my personal gain. And I found that even if I try. I can't. I like to build things, create little worlds inside the GREAT ONE (interpret that as you will but I mean music, automations, etc). It also fulfills me to interact with some people that are worthy. Living a life in accordance to something, which something after years and years of trying to define it you reach to the cocnlusion that it is the everything, so in accordance to the will of the cosmos and working to preserve the perennial values of beauty and purity.

To be honest as I'm sitting here right now I can't even think of an action I want to do, for personal gain. What the hell is personal gain anyway? Money? A piece of ass? You can get both of these if you live your life normaly and you don't opt being a bum.

Personal gain is far gone in the past for me, and I didn't even try. Being on a mission is my natural state.

From my own reference library of experiences-past: One may move purposefully in the direction of enlightenment, but it is only in the moment of relinquishing the desire to attain it, that it can be attained.

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Phoenix

From my own reference library of experiences-past: One may move purposefully in the direction of enlightenment, but it is only in the moment of relinquishing the desire to attain it, that it can be attained.

The intention, too. I pretty much stated, to myself: "I quit". It was the momentum I had built up, that carried me, after I got out of my own way. Desire - for what I could get out of it - certainly played its part, but the lesson was that desire defeats itself.